IUPUI participates in TechPoint's Xtern program

[Video: A representative from a company draws a diagram on a whiteboard to help illustrate a question being posed to a student at the TechPoint Xtern event. The man drawing is standing by the board. The student, and another representative from the company, are sitting, looking at the drawing.]

[Words appear in bottom-left corner: IUPUI presents]

Mike Langellier speaks in voiceover: Xtern Finalist Day is like the NBA Draft Day.

[Video: A student is interviewing with the Regenstrief Institute at the Xtern event. He is wearing an Xtern lanyard around his neck. Both are sitting at a table, face-to-face.]

[Video: A student is interviewing with SEP: Software Engineering Professionals at the Xtern event. The student is sitting at a table, face-to-face, with two representatives from the company.]

[Video: A sign that reads "XTERN"]

Langellier speaks in voiceover: So, what happened today is that we have 155 of the top finalists from all around the country,

Langellier speaks: ... but ultimately were chosen from over 1,800 applicants, whose home states are in 43 different states, and they hail from 120 different universities. We've whittled that down through a rigorous screening process ...

[Video: A panning shot of the interview room at the Xtern event. The room is a large, open space. Several tables are occupied by companies interviewing college students for potential internship opportunities.]

[Video: A student is interviewing a company at the Xtern event. The student is sitting at a table, face-to-face, with a representative from the business.]

Langellier speaks in voiceover: ... to the 155 finalists that are here today to meet with 93 hiring teams that each have a table around this room and the next over here. So ultimately at the end of this, the students and the companies will rank each other based on if there is a match, and at the end of the day, we will match them together.

[Video: A student is interviewing with a company at the Xtern event. The student is sitting at a table, face-to-face, with two representatives from the company.]

Damanveer Singh speaks in voiceover: I had an internship with them the last year through this program.

"Last year, all I wanted was to work at a big, famous company with massive data sets and lots of customers," junior Damanveer Singh said. "But after working at a startup, I realized not only how scary that responsibility can be, but also that my friends interning at large companies didn't get challenged nearly as much as I did."

This year is Singh's second time participating in TechPoint's Xtern Finalist Day. The event is for students seeking tech-skilled and business-skilled internships, providing them the opportunity to be interviewed by Indianapolis-area tech companies.

On Nov. 9, 155 tech-savvy students from 19 states and 31 universities attended Xtern Finalist Day at the Biltwell Event Center in hopes of landing an internship that will progress their technology-focused careers. Over the course of eight hours, each student had up to six interviews with six different companies, resulting in more than 700 interviews conducted by 93 different hiring departments from 60 tech companies.

This program takes students through a multistep process to maximize opportunities for both companies and students. Students are given the chance to revise resumes, receive helpful feedback and gain interview experience. The system also allows companies to choose which candidates they speak to from the list of applicants and saves them the trouble of having to recruit interns individually.

View print quality imagePotential Xterns begin their first interviews of the day with tech companies in Indianapolis at TechPoint's Xtern Day.Photo by Samantha Thompson, Indiana University

After the process is complete, the company sends an official offer to the student. If the position is accepted, the intern commits to a 10-week internship over the summer during which they will live on the IUPUI campus, gain valuable work experience and meet more than 100 other Xterns from around the country. Better yet, if the company and the Xtern are enjoying the experience, IUPUI's partnership with TechPoint allows them to extend the internship through the fall semester.

Many companies involved in tech product, tech service, tech infrastructure or tech-enabled businesses participate in this program, looking for talented students to join their teams and quickly ramp up the company's tech skills. Some are well-known, while others might be new names to students.

"My first internship through Xtern was with PactSafe, a company I had never heard of," Singh said. "So I definitely didn't think they would be the highlight of my Xtern Finalist Day -- until I had a chance to talk to the team. Interning there provided the perfect workspace for me to challenge myself and learn to develop with industry standards. The dev team was small, but the work was overwhelming, so everyone had to carry their own weight."

Singh explained that the Xtern application process is a rigorous testing ground that provides the perfect medium to see how your abilities compare to those of people you will be working with after graduation. Having completed all the various stages of the process, and reaching the Finalist Day platform, Singh feels very confident in his ability to participate in the tech industry, but also said he's looking to thrive -- not simply survive -- in his career. The returning Xtern said he wants to continue to improve his professional skills.

By the numbers

1,816 -- applicants for the Xtern program.

97 -- percentage of Xterns with a positive impression of Indianapolis after completing the program. The number was 31 percent before the program.

73 -- percentage of Xterns likely to accept a job in Indianapolis. The number was 19 percent before completing the program.

"Around 90 percent of our students stay in Indiana after they graduate, and nearly three-quarters of those students who stay in the Central Indiana region," said Jay Gladden, associate vice chancellor for undergraduate education. "So, partnering with the local industry on programs that are internship-oriented and work-and-learn focused is very central to the strategy that we're pursuing at IUPUI."

Mike Martin, director of the Indy Delivery Center at Appirio, a company helping large enterprises implement cloud technology, shared his firm's excitement about adding interns to its delivery department, where they learn how to assist clients in improving their businesses. Appirio is partnered with Google, Workday and Salesforce and helps transform customer experiences through cloud technologies.

Mike Langellier, CEO of TechPoint, explained that software companies are among the fastest-growing in the world and, as a result, lead to lots of great employment opportunities.

"The more we can draw those companies here and help them grow, the better opportunities for the economy, job industry and students," Langellier said. "We anticipate that from today, more than 100 students and companies will be matched for summer internships."

And they aren't just looking for technology people -- even tech companies need to fill positions in other departments. So TechPoint now promotes this opportunity to business students interested in nontechnical internships with tech companies.